A relatively young company wanted to know if the Red Herring Asia Top 100 awards are significant enough for them to fly down to Hong Kong to make their presentation in the Finals. Upon giving it a thought, I had mixed feeling and thought I would share the question here (I am sure there are quite a few companies represented here who have won this award in the past).
The company in question isn’t a Startup any more; I would call them a young company. They have around 60 employees.
For the uninitiated, The Red Herring Asia Top100 awards works in the following way:
Step 1. You send in an application with relevant documents
Step 2. Someone from the Management team does a phone ‘interview’ with the founders
Step 3. You download a template, prepare a presentation and fly down to Hong Kong, (They have a conference and you have to pay to attend this conference)
My questions here are:
1. Did any of you’ll who won this award find any value in it? Did it add to your brand image of boost customer confidence?
2. Should a young company consider pursuing awards like these? Do share your thoughts.
P.S. : On a philosophical level this could be interpreted as “How important is external validation for internal goals” 🙂